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Overseas Housing Allowance survey in Japan now online

  • Published
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan --  The 2007 Overseas Housing Allowance and Move in Expenses Survey for uniformed U.S. servicemembers will be conducted in Japan now through May 16.

The combined survey is conducted to collect utility and recurring maintenance and move in expense data from servicemembers who receive an Overseas Housing Allowance. The Per Diem, Travel and Transportation Allowance Committee uses this data to compute the OHA Utility and Recurring Maintenance Allowance and Move in Housing Allowance for servicemembers.

The OHA utility and recurring maintenance allowance is paid monthly to defray utility expenses incurred by the servicemember. MIHA is a fixed-rate one time payment that reflects average expenditures made by members to make their overseas housing habitable.

All servicemembers who reside in privately-leased quarters in Japan and receive an overseas housing allowance will have an opportunity to complete the survey on the internet. No outside contractors will be involved in the survey. The questionnaire will be similar in scope to previous surveys. It will ask servicemembers to report the average monthly cost of utilities and routine maintenance. The survey is available at 
https://www.perdiem.osd.mil/oha/survey/aproha.html through May 16 and takes about 30 minutes to complete.

To complete the surveys, respondents should have actual bills or records of their utility expenses and maintenance expenses for the last twelve months. They will be expected to compute a monthly average for each of these expenses. Respondents may take the survey at home with their spouses and should make every effort to reflect actual incurred expenses.

The data will be used to compute scientifically accurate OHA utility and MIHA allowances for servicemembers in Japan, so, accuracy in completing the survey is critical. Expenses should be reported in the currency used to pay them. For example, if electricity was paid in local currency report yen, do not convert to dollars